


Until Then

by blitzturtles



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Cold, Deaf Character, Hard of Hearing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 13:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19377802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blitzturtles/pseuds/blitzturtles
Summary: It’s been a long night for Sokka. He hasn’t slept more than a few, brief minutes here and there. Most of his attention has been on the unconscious man to his left. The air is biting in a way that Sokka has -- admittedly -- become unused to over the last several months, or maybe it’s just the anxiety that lets the cold get at him. Either way, all he can do is keep himself upright and his eyelids peeled open. Help will be here by sunrise. All he has to do is keep them alive until then.





	Until Then

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse my poor man's em-dash. Some of us don't have fancy computers that can do those with fancy keyboard shortcuts. Also, it irritates El when I don't copy & paste the real thing, lol.

It’s been a long night for Sokka. He hasn’t slept more than a few, brief minutes here and there. Most of his attention has been on the unconscious man to his left. The air is biting in a way that Sokka has -- admittedly -- become unused to over the last several months, or maybe it’s just the anxiety that lets the cold get at him. Either way, all he can do is keep himself upright and his eyelids peeled open. Help will be here by sunrise. All he has to do is keep them alive until then.

That, he thinks bitterly, is easier said than done.

But he’s nothing if not stubborn, and surviving has suited him so far. He stokes the fire he made earlier and tries to rub some blood flow back into his extremities. Mostly, it makes him ache more, but he welcomes the sensation. It helps keep him awake, and he’ll take anything that can help him with that particular task.

Zuko keeps wheezing away. The sound is both terrifying and reassuring. As long as Zuko is making noise, than Sokka knows he’s alive, but he doesn’t know for how much longer Zuko can manage like this. He isn’t built for the cold on a good day. Normally, he has his firebending to compensate, but that’s so far out of the question that his lack of consciousness isn’t the only obstacle they face on that front.

Sokka brushes his fingers through Zuko’s hair, pushing some of it out of his face and behind his ear. He looks _bad_ , and it scares Sokka. He wants to be hopelessly optimistic. Tell himself Zuko will be fine. He’s made it through worse, but the combination of whatever this is that is chipping away at his immune system and the sizable chunk that’s missing out of his side might have other plans for the Fire Lord.

A few minutes -- or maybe a few hours -- pass until Sokka’s blinking his eyes open again, and that sets him immediately on edge. The fire is barely going now, and Zuko’s rolled over onto his right side, probably to make breathing easier.

Sokka’s about to see what he can do for the fire when he notices that Zuko hasn’t made a sound since Sokka woke up. The anxiety comes back tenfold, and he leans forward to try and determine if rolling on his side had simply improved Zuko’s breathing that much, or if he’s simply not breathing at all.

“Zuko,” he starts when he can’t completely reassure himself one way or the other. “Zuko! Hey!” He doesn’t want to shake the Fire Lord with the wound on his side only barely tended to. 

He tries calling Zuko’s name several more times before panic gets the better of him, and he grasps Zuko’s shoulder and squeezes.

One eye cracks open ever-so-slightly, and Zuko lets out a quiet groan that further proves he’s alive.

“You weren’t responding,” Sokka says in explanation. 

Zuko squints at him enough that he may as well be closing his eye, but then he turns his head slightly. “Wrong ear,” he rasps out.

Sokka feels his face warm slightly. “Oh, right.” He knows that. He’s known that about Zuko for years now, but life and death situations tend to make people forget the obvious.

Zuko’s eyes slide shut again. His fingers twitch out the corner of Sokka’s eye, and he carefully takes his hand. Zuko squeezes with more strength than Sokka expects. A quiet reassurance, perhaps, but Zuko doesn’t bother wasting the energy it would take to try and speak again. Sokka doesn’t mind so much. He has what he wanted. He can manage on that little bit of interaction for another few hours. He’ll keep telling himself that, if Zuko is well enough to point out his idiocy -- whether that was his intention or not --, then he’s well enough to make it until help arrives.


End file.
